Efter Cimabue. Detalje fra korsfæstelsen i den øvre langkirke i Assisi

This drawing is not an original work in the traditional sense, but a copy. Alberto Giacometti copied art from all of Western art history. By copying the works of older artists, he gained insight into the nature of imitation. One might say that he imitated his predecessors, who in turn imitated reality. The representation of reality has always been a fundamental matter for the visual arts. As a rule, Giacometti did not copy directly from original works of art, but from photographic reproductions in books. The original for this drawing is in the church of S. Francesco in the Italian city of Assisi, but the copy was done after a photograph, not in front of the fresco. Created by the Italian Renaissance artist Cimabue, the fresco depicts a crucifixion scene. In Giacometti’s drawing, however, we do not see the crucified figure. Instead, Giacometti focused on the heads which in the fresco belong to spectators from the crowd below the cross. Thus, this drawing is about observing. At the level of its subject matter, it is about being a spectator, and in a wider sense, the piece is about observing when copying (50 Favorites in the SMK Collection).